Strawberry Punch
by Veluthi
Summary: I'd thought the mess which was my life would go back to normal after saving Orihime from the hell of Hueco Mundo. I was so dead wrong. The war isn't over yet . . . and I'm alone - alone with the part of myself that scares me the most. I know I shouldn't give in to him. But inside my heart, another battle has already begun.
1. Prologue - Comatose

**A/N:** Hello there! This isn't going to be my first fanfiction ever, but my first one written in English (which is not my native language). I would love to hear what you think of it, even if you don't intend on reading further - I want to know where I lost a reader's interest, so that I can do things better in the future. I promise I will absolutely not flame anyone offering constructive criticism to me. :)

**Pairing:** Ichigo X Shirosaki (Vasto Lorde - Why? Because I'm in love with this long white hair of his.)

**Warning:** This story is rated _M_ for language, violence and sexual content (YAOI - boy X boy) in later chapters. I tried very hard to keep Shirosaki IC, so you shouldn't expect a lot of vanilla sex. Don't like - don't read! _Not suitable for readers under the age of at least 16!_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach and I didn't get paid for writing this fanfiction.

**Songs I listened to while writing this:** Eyes Set to Kill - Darling; Skillet - Comatose

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**[0] Comatose**

Scowling, Ichigo turned his already absent look away from his teacher - to whom he wasn't paying attention anyway - to gaze at the sky beyond the classroom's windows and watched the fleecy clouds rolling by.

He knew he should feel a sense of accomplishment: After all, he had returned from Hueco Mundo alive. After all, he had managed to save Orihime and bring her back to the world of the living - unconsciously he shot a glance at her, sitting at her desk as if nothing bad had ever happened, before staring at the blue sky once more. After all, nobody had died and everyone had returned back home.

He should be relieved. He should feel happy. But the problem was: he didn't.

During the past few days the Substitute Shinigami had tried very hard to forget about the whole mess, to carry on with his life, to go to school like everyone else, to talk to ordinary people about things teenagers were usually interested in. However, no matter how much he pretended to be just a perfectly normal person again, he couldn't stop himself from wondering about Hollows, Espada, Aizen, Shinigami, the Soul Society. In a nutshell, he couldn't stop himself from thinking about what he would never be able to explain to anyone who hadn't seen it with his own eyes.

Suddenly Ichigo was jolted out of his thoughts by an angry voice, "Kurosaki! Are you listening to me _at all_?" When his eyes returned to the front of the classroom, he was looking right at his teacher's disgruntled face. The brown-eyed boy mumbled some lackadaisical excuse in response. "Be good enough to lend me your ear for five more minutes, would you?" she snapped at him before turning towards the blackboard again. His gaze dropped down onto his desk and he could almost feel several sympathetic glances from behind him. One of them came from Inoue for sure, another one most likely from Chad - that was very easy to guess. Maybe Ishida was also looking at him, although it seemed hardly probable since the Quincy was too much of an exemplary student to ever pay attention to anyone but the teacher during class.

Actually, it didn't matter. The Substitute Shinigami couldn't talk to them about the way he truly felt either. Of course, they - unlike most of his classmates - were aware of the recent events regarding the hidden part of reality most human beings were completely oblivious of. That fact, however, didn't make things better. If anything, it made his situation even worse. Ever since his battle against Ulquiorra, Orihime had asked him every single day if he was okay. To be perfectly honest, Ichigo didn't know what to say anymore: If he admitted that he wasn't, she would try to help, but she couldn't. If he answered that he was fine on the contrary, it would be painfully obvious he was lying.

Before the orange-haired boy had any further occasion to pore over the shit he was in, the bell rang for the end of class. Around two dozen chairs were pushed back from the desks almost simultaneously, producing a disturbing amount of noise all around him, as every other student stood up to grab his stuff and make his way home. Orihime, Chad, and even Ishida one by one threw a look at him while passing, though none of them were really surprised when Kurosaki didn't return it. He hadn't done so for a while now. Finally, he could not fail but notice that he was the last one remaining. Even his teacher was already gone, presumably quite mad at the behavior he had shown for more than a full week now. Taking a deep breath and involuntarily wearing a scowl on his face again, he slowly started to shove his books into his school bag.

When he left the classroom and walked down the long, empty hallways, he didn't expect to find any of his classmates still inside the school building. The female voices coming round the next corner caught his attention, surprising him by mentioning his name. There were two of them and he knew right away that they belonged to Inoue and her best friend Arisawa, because he had been familiar with both of the girls since his childhood.

"Come on, Orihime, cheer up! Ichigo may be a bloody dense idiot sometimes - he doesn't see the most obvious things unless they hit him in the face. But besides that, he's a very good friend. I'm absolutely certain that he'll snap out of it soon." It was Tatsuki who had said that, both her voice and her harsh choice of words betraying her. The long-haired teenager replied in a much more quiet and well-spoken way. Still, the sadness in her voice was virtually palpable, "It's not that. It's just . . ."

Her more feisty friend let out a frustrated sigh. "Please tell me the truth, would you? I'm fed up with you people never bringing me into the loop. I already have at least some clue about what the four of you - Ichigo, Chad, Ishida and you - are doing. I saw that goofy black outfit and that weird sword the dumbass is wearing sometimes as well as one of these . . . monsters he was fighting. It's pretty clear to me that you were not on some holiday together - I seriously smashed Kurosaki's face in when he refused to tell me where you were back then. So . . . ?"

Tatsuki's request was met with silence at first. The brown-eyed boy eavesdropping on the conversation silently leaned his back against the cold wall, waiting for Orihime to respond. He had certainly noticed those minor, but nonetheless significant changes in her behavior towards him. Of course it wasn't anything blatant since the kindhearted girl in glaring contrast to Arisawa always tried to avoid hurting other people by telling them the naked truth. She still smiled at him, she still talked to him and offered her help, she still defended his frequent absence from class in front of the teacher and his other classmates who suspected him of skipping school. But - and the Substitute Shinigami was well aware of that - she had started to sometimes avoid eye contact with him when they faced each other.

"It's just . . . ," Inoue went on at last, ". . . that Ichigo has changed a lot. He has often had problems controlling his temper in the past; he is a very straight forward person. Ever since I've known him, he has never turned away from a brawl with the other guys at school. Even so . . . he has always realized where to draw the line, hasn't he? I mean, he didn't ever beat anyone up so badly that they had to be taken to a hospital or something like that." Tatsuki shrugged. "At heart, Kurosaki is quite a little fraidy cat. I first met him in elementary school where we both went to the same combat sports club. I remember him always crying after losing to me during practice. Sure, he has grown older since then, but he wouldn't hurt a fly except if it's do or die. I'm pretty sure of that."

The next sound the teenage boy could hear was a muted sniffle, which also crept into Orihimes's voice and made it tremble. "You are wrong," she breathed before hesitantly adding, "The truth is that I've never ever been as scared as I was of _him_ a few days ago!" Ichigo stiffened while the girl's words echoed through his mind. What was she saying . . . ? That she was _scared_ of him? He had come all the way to Hueco Mundo, had given everything he'd had to save her - only to scare the crap out of her in the end? The one and only goal he'd had during this battle had been protecting her . . . hadn't it? In the meantime Arisawa was staring at Inoue in shock, watching her best friend trying in vain to hold back her tears. "He was looking at Ishida-kun and me like we were . . . trash, simply getting in his way. He fought his heart out without even caring for a second about us or himself!" she whispered shakily.

Round the corner the Substitute Shinigami clenched his fists, pressing his back against the wall trying to contain the outcry which was about to escape his throat by grinding his teeth until his jaw began to ache. Tatsuki's voice seemed to be quite far away as she attempted to calm down Orihime, who couldn't help but weep freely now. It went off even further once the girls started to walk down the corridor together. Ichigo didn't move an inch until every last sniffle and sob was gone. He stood frozen in place for at least another five minutes, squeezing his eyes shut and breathing heavily as soon as his friends had disappeared. There was no way he could have misinterpreted what he had overheard a moment ago, no matter how hard he tried to turn every word he had just picked up over in his mind.

When he opened his eyes again, he felt dead tired. All Kurosaki wanted to do at this point was to make his way home, crawl into his bed, go to sleep and never wake up again. Sluggishly he put his body into motion, shuffling down the hallway, blindly dragging his feet out of the school building. He had nearly managed to leave the campus, he could already see the front gate - but then another person calling out his name made him freeze dead in his tracks, "Iiiiiiii-chigo!" At this point he was absolutely sure that some higher power truly had it in for him. Why _Keigo_, of all damn people? Just what he needed now!

At least the orange-haired teenager got the chance to take a deep breath of fresh air before the other boy caught up with him. As soon as he stood beside him, Ichigo's classmate already started to yak at him, clapping him on the shoulder with overexaggerated enthusiasm. "You always look so depressed these days - keep smiling! Did you catch the latest news? A friend of my sister's is throwing a party tonight. Not _any_ party but _the_ party to celebrate his 20th birthday! Do you know what that means?" The Substitute Shinigami shrugged, scowling. "No - and I'm not interested at all, alright? By the way, aren't we supposed to be in school tomorrow?" he replied, hoping Asano would get the point.

Of course he didn't and simply blabbered on, "Oh, come on, Kurosaki! Today is Friday and that guy will be reaching legal age! They're going to have all kinds of alcohol there - beer, juice, cocktails, _everything_. They'll play the coolest music, I heard they even hired a DJ! Just imagine . . . tons of pretty girls! It'll be _awesome_! Drinking, dancing, flirting and stuff all night, you know?" Ichigo let out a low groan, still wearing his trademark scowl on his face. He should have known that getting rid of Keigo wasn't anything easy, especially with some stupid idea like this being stuck inside his empty head. "Listen . . . ," he began some kind of poor excuse, but his classmate cut off his words by nearly jumping in front of his feet and giving him that 'Com'on, com'on, com'on!' hangdog look so typical of that idiot.

On second thought, maybe he wasn't completely wrong? Aside from the fact that he undeniably was the most aggravating person of the whole school, he probably had a point there. Could it be that damnable to let go of the things he was agonizing over for a few hours . . . ? Perhaps trying to behave like an ordinary teenager would be much easier, doing the things everyone else did instead of chasing Hollows and other weirdos to protect the world. At least the Substitute Shinigami thought so for the moment after having considered it for a few seconds. He took Asano entirely by surprise with the final answer to his unspoken request - which the little chatterbox had only made because he was too terrified of his older sister to dare showing up at her friend's birthday party alone, anyway. "Well - yeah. I'm just going to stop by tonight, okay?" the orange-haired boy muttered.

"_Really_?" Keigo called out, literally bouncing up and down with joy in front of him, "That's gonna be the best decision of your entire _life_!" After getting Kurosaki's promise, the nag miraculously got off his back and popped off in an instant to give him no chance to change his mind about it. So Ichigo could finally make his way home. At that time, he was still hoping this party wouldn't suck too much. Unfortunately, he was badly mistaken . . .

**[- to be continued -]**


	2. Eat You Alive (A)

**A/N:** Hello there! First of all, I want to give thanks to everyone reading this - I'm totally amazed by the fact that this story got six followers, one favorite and over 200 (!) hits within only a few days! Special thanks go to the people who left a review since feedback is the best way for me to improve my writing skills; you'll find that I've replied to every comment given by now.

**Warning:** Rated M for drug abuse (underage drinking). _Not suitable for readers under the age of at least 16!_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach and I didn't get paid for writing this fanfiction.

**Songs I listened to while writing this:** Three Days Grace - Break; Limp Bizkit - Eat You Alive

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**[1] Eat You Alive (A)**

The rain poured down on everything underneath the dark, slate blue sky which was tinged with violet in places. It pattered against the glass facades of the bleak skyscrapers, dropped down the infinite chasms between the structures and showered the only being in this gloomy, godforsaken world with freezing water.

The raindrops incessantly hitting his slender frame weren't able to make him shiver. He couldn't feel the cold since his pale body didn't contain any warmth within itself. All he sensed was the water's liquid, flowing touch as it seeped through his flawlessly white clothes and drenched the silver-white strands of his long hair, spread out over the flat roof of the building on which he was lying - one leg stretched out, the other drawn up beneath his soaking wet Hakama. A sudden flash of lightning breaking through the heavy cloud cover caused the ghostly white figure to raise his lids and reveal pitch-black eyes with radiant golden irides. Unblinking, the man - who wouldn't have referred to himself as a man at all - gazed into the sky, his taloned hands folded behind his neck.

He gave the clouds a sullen look, a threatening, low snarl escaping his throat. He just loathed the rain - not mainly because of its nasty habit of washing over every square inch of this boring, blank, unprotected place which often appeared to him to be even more _hollow_ than the sands of Hueco Mundo. That unspoken joke was sick enough to make the Hollow's colorless manifestation chuckle despite his foul mood, his creepily distorted voice echoing off the buildings all around him. His outburst of amusement, however, passed as quickly as it had begun, whereas these annoying drops of water kept on dampening his porcelain skin.

It probably wouldn't have bothered him in the least if it had really been ordinary rain spilling from the darkened sky - although he wasn't used to weather phenomenons like that either due to their complete absence from the dimension his species usually inhabited. What he witnessed here didn't have anything to do with the mortal world's weather: This place wasn't real at all. Rather, it was a reflection of Ichigo Kurosaki's soul. The gloomy clouds covering the sky consisted of his hidden sorrow, the thunderbolts represented his helpless rage and the rain was made up of his choked back tears. Simply put, this plane of existence was built from that measly humans manifest _weakness_.

There was nothing that the Vasto Lorde despised as much as weakness. It was lethal for the lost souls wandering through the sands of Hueco Mundo, seeking mortal combat not just to survive but to evolve, devouring for the sake of not being devoured themselves. The very desire to kill, to destroy, to negate was deeply rooted in every Hollow's essence - a basic instinct he couldn't resist; not that he would ever dream of doing so. He had ranked among the strongest of his kind. The mere fact that he was still alive - as alive as someone with no heart inside his chest could be - proved he had never lost to one of his equals. He had made it up to this point . . . to end up inside such a pathetic soul as this at last. The necessity to join forces with an ordinary human who wasn't even an actual Shinigami but a substitute offended him for that reason alone. Yet joining forces with this _particular_ human had turned out to be all the worse.

In theory, the guy had plenty of spiritual energy and accordingly, quite a lot of mental strength. Otherwise he couldn't have contained the sheer amount of Reiatsu the Hollow had discharged into Ichigo's soul by merging his own spirit with the boy's. In practice, however, he failed miserably at profiting from his natural powers which had been enhanced further by his deal with the devil. _Exactly _that was the crux of the matter. It might have been acceptable to the Vasto Lorde if the teenager had been a born loser, completely incapable of growing strong one day. In that case, he would have consumed the kid's soul and taken over control of the physical body to serve as his disguise while roaming around freely outside of Hueco Mundo. But to stand back and watch someone who _was_ perfectly capable of gaining power denying his instincts made him plain mad. Instead of merely being stuck with a weakling, he was stuck with a bloody coward who dared to bury his true nature beneath reason and decency, ignoring the unique opportunity he had been offered.

All of a sudden the Hollow's snow-white frame stiffened and he jerked upright, warily looking around. A second later he was on his feet, drawing his sword without blinking an eye. _Something_ simply felt wrong - the fact that he couldn't figure out instantly what that might be left him scowling. He could only tell something about Kurosaki's consciousness had suddenly started to change: The flow of spiritual energy in his inner world was slowly becoming more unstable. So what was happening to that foolish, incompetent idiot _now_?

.

.

.

Ichigo pushed another empty beer can aside and gazed around the room listlessly. The music booming all around him echoed irritatingly through his head, which felt more than a little dizzy by now. Blinking, he briefly watched one of those ever-present 'so-deep-in-love' couples dancing next to him before he turned away to grab himself a new drink. Now that he was here, slouching on an armchair inside the living room of a guy he didn't know at all and getting drunk at said guy's expense, the orange-haired boy wondered what had come over him to actually take part in this. He shouldn't have stopped by in the first place, but he had given his promise to do so. However, he should have popped off as soon as possible at least. Even so, the sixteen-year-old hadn't left yet. Having his next shot of vodka, he caught a glimpse of Keigo who had gotten fucked up even harder than himself, continuously chattering at some giggling girl without realizing that she wasn't laughing _with_ but _at_ him - and so was everyone else. It served that moron right for dragging innocent people into that whole drek, Ichigo thought to himself.

Meanwhile, nothing had remained of his initial intention to socialize and talk to a few people about some banal topic or other. Kurosaki had really tried to wipe the trademark scowl off his face, to laugh at Keigo's silly, smutty jokes, to smile at people who asked about his made up holiday trip, to give them the answers they were expecting . . . - although he still didn't know what to tell them. The truth had to be kept secret, especially since no normal person would have bought his 'evil spirits are about to kill everyone by leeching their souls' story, anyway. Unfortunately, Ichigo just wasn't the right kind of guy to come up with some extravagant but still believable lie out of the blue, either. So he'd had no choice but to put people off with vague, short responses predictably taken the wrong way.

"Were have you been?"

- "_Here and there_."

"What did you do?"

- "_This and that_."

"How'd it go?"

- "_Just so-so_."

After having spent two hours with conversations like this, the Substitute Shinigami was sick of stupid questions he could neither honestly nor credibly reply to. At the same time, people around him also lost interest in querying any further because they didn't get satisfying or even entertaining answers from the uncommunicative boy. At that point, Ichigo had decided to stop trying and get royally drunk instead; nobody was there to keep him from doing so. Once more, he felt tired - dead tired and all alone despite the crowd of revelers around him. He downed his next drink in one swig without remembering the number of shots he'd already had. His vision had started to blur and the teenager couldn't clear it up completely by blinking any longer. Trying to refill his glass again, Kurosaki noticed that the bottle of vodka on the table beside his armchair was empty. With a weary sigh, he let go of it - he would have to get himself something new from the kitchen. But when he stood up to put that brilliantplan into action, he nearly lost his balance as the whole room abruptly started spinning around him.

"Shit", he muttered right after stumbling halfway towards the door, startled by the fact that his legs no longer quite did what he wanted them to do. Ichigo had never been boozing a lot and not any more at all since he'd started to spent his nights chasing Hollows rather than doing the things teenagers ordinarily did. Consequently, he had no idea how exactly he'd managed to get _this_ wasted within a few hours. Even so, if nothing else, the Substitute Shinigami knew that he had to make his way home or sleep on the floor otherwise. So much for that damn party! Unconsciously, he supported himself on the door frame while passing it, before he careened downstairs, making desperate efforts not to barge into everyone he came across. The deafening music banging through the entire house mixed with people's voices, creating a confusing noise which burned not only in his ears but also inside his head.

The orange-haired boy sighed with relief once he left the entrance hall behind him and stepped onto the small alley which led out of a tiny garden, back to the road. The cool nighttime breeze lightly touching his heated face made him shiver. It had gotten dark long ago, so the streets of the suburb were empty and quiet. Ichigo - or rather his woozy head - appreciated the silence. It was hard enough to walk straight without sprawling down or losing the way home: He had never considered street lights to be a formidable obstacle before. He almost slipped several times until he finally staggered up to the front door he had been searching for.

Without thinking, the teenager rang the bell - on most nights, his father was still awake at this late hour due to his job at the hospital. Although his old man acted incredibly stupid most of the time, he wouldn't bawl his son out for being drunk after a birthday party. If anything, Isshin Kurosaki criticized his firstborn for not enjoying his adolescent years enough and worrying too much about everything. However, nobody answered the door. The sixteen-year-old frowned and tried to figure out what his dazed mind couldn't remember right away. When he finally realized what he'd missed, he felt the urge to slap his own forehead. _Of course _nobody was home: Yuzu had told him a day ago that she and Karin would be gone on a school trip from Friday morning to Saturday afternoon. Their father had agreed to accompany them, because the middle school teachers were always happy to have a few parents along who also watched over the kids.

Awkwardly fumbling inside his jeans pocket, the weary boy dug for his keys. It turned out that just grabbing them had been far easier than slotting the right one into the damn lock. Ichigo uttered several curses under his breath until he actually managed to unlock the front door and floundered inside. The Substitute Shinigami blindly slammed the door shut as a matter of routine. Supporting himself against the wall, he lurched around the corner and through the kitchen. The staircase formed the next hurdle he had to overcome to make it into his room. By some miracle, he didn't plunge downward. Nevertheless, he faltered more than once as he missed his footing on one of the steps.

Ultimately, Kurosaki found himself in front of his eagerly anticipated bed. Giving a low groan, he struggled to unzip and pull down his tight jeans, which were too uncomfortable to keep on while sleeping. But the teenager failed miserably at holding his balance when he lifted one foot off the ground to get rid of that stubborn piece of clothing. With an annoyed grunt, he fell down onto his blanket. Grumbling, he rolled onto his back and clumsily stripped his trousers down. At last, Ichigo was ready to go to sleep, wearing boxers and his T-shirt only. If he hadn't been as wasted and busy with kicking his doffed jeans away as he was, he might have noticed the heavy, eerie Reiatsu hovering in the air all around him, steadily condensing after it had breached his weakened mental barriers.

He shivered subtly at the coolish touch of the thin, gauzy haze which had started to spread across his room. At first it was barely visible, but with every passing second it came into view more clearly. When he couldn't overlook the strange phenomenon anymore, not even with his blurred vision, the boy blinked fiercly, trying to dissipate what he supposed to be another alcohol-induced illusion. Despite his strenuous efforts to make the ghostly white, virtually palpable fog vanish, it didn't go away - instead, the milky billows gradually formed a slender, roughly humanoid shape. Puzzled, the Substitute Shinigami watched his inner Hollow's all too familiar, but yet unidentified form materializing directly in front of him. A few moments later Kurosaki stared into a deathly pale copy of his own face. Although the angular features were nearly identical to his own, that copy differed distinctly from the original: Glowing golden eyes shining against a pitch-black backdrop looked straight into his lusterless brown ones as his confused, clueless expression was met with a blatant sneer.

The Vasto Lorde gave his alleged king a suspicious look. He'd expected the sixteen-year-old to snap at him for showing up unsolicitedly or to be freaked out by the fact that his soul's occupant was actually able to set foot into the outside world. The second option had seemed to be less likely since that hothead had always been better at yelling than he was at quick thinking. Ichigo, however, neither shouted at the creepy colorless figure nor acted panicked at the mere sight of the evil spirit's manifestation. The one and only thing he did was sitting there and looking the strange person over who had just come out of nowhere. Some minor part of his muddled mind still recognized the guy as something well-known he should have been able to classify, something alerting he felt uncomfortable with, something vicious he had to beware of . . . - but no matter how hard he tried to piece these gut reactions together and to put them into an appropriate context, he couldn't comprehend the overall picture before these lines of thought trickled away within his dizzy head.

Meanwhile, his inner Hollow glared at the Substitute Shinigami all the more suspiciously, bending forward to eye him at point-blank range. With this move, a few silver-white strands of his loose, hip-length hair fell over his shoulders to rest on the pure white fabric and the black, V-shaped fur collar of his narrow coat. Blinking _again_, Kurosaki silently gaped at the moonlight reflecting off of them before impulsively doing something that caused the ancient evil spirit to frown at him in utter disbelief: He reached out with his hand to gently _touch _the silky, snowy strands. For a moment, the Vasto Lorde was truly baffled. He simply let it happen, stunned and muted. He was used to other creatures fleeing from him in panic or trying to fight him in vain, he was used to be surrounded by their terrified death cries, he was used to be soaked in blood from head to toe . . . - But he definitely wasn't used to any other than his own fingers running through his hair this cautiously.

"What the fuck happened to you?" he hissed in a low, irritated voice, leaning even closer towards the orange-haired boy. Perhaps he would have said more, had not the smell of booze reaching his nostrils stopped him. It took the Hollow several seconds to draw the connection between that odd scent emanating from the teenager and his unusual, weird behavior. Back in Hueco Mundo, he'd never encountered any sort of alcohol and its nasty, mind-altering effects.

[ ... ]


	3. Eat You Alive (B)

**A/N:** Hello there! I decided to split the original version of "Eat You Alive" into half, because I was told very long chapters discourage some people from following a story since reading through them takes a lot of time. This also means I'm going to update more frequently in the future. ;)

**Warning:** Rated M for quite detailed smut (YAOI - boy X boy, violence, blood, nasty language). If you don't like stuff like that or if your country's national laws don't allow you to look at it, please stop reading. _Not suitable for readers under the age of at least 16!_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach and I didn't get paid for writing this fanfiction.

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**[1] Eat You Alive (B)**

[ ... ]

At the same time, Ichigo had no clue what he had done to upset the strange, still vaguely familiar guy in front of him. He only knew for sure that he didn't want him to be upset. Deep inside his heart, the sixteen-year-old ached to please everybody, to protect everyone, to make people around him happy. Usually, he buried this naive wish underneath his tough exterior; the drunkenness had turned that sorry heart of his inside out. Now, he couldn't stand another accusatory look directed towards him. As he suddenly closed the gap between his face and its milky-white copy, all the Substitute Shinigami wanted was to calm down the man he seemed to have annoyed, to quieten his suspicions, to apologize somehow for whatever he'd done wrong. Since he found himself unable to put this desire into words, he had nothing else left but his body to express it.

The Vasto Lorde stood frozen in place when the disturbing warmth of Kurosaki's trembling lips met his own chilling, though perfectly smooth ones. He had at least a faint idea what made the boy act so crazy - nevertheless, _this_ move had caught him completely off-guard. As far as he'd heard, alcohol got humans to overcome their inhibitions. That, however, did not necessarily mean it made them fondle and kiss evil spirits . . . unless doing so was a stifled, urgent need of the person in question. Now it was for the Hollow to blink at the teenager who still kept desperately kissing him in an almost submissive, pleading way. So _this_ was another suppressed instinct of his?

The ghostly white figure raised a slender hand and locked its colorless, taloned fingers tightly around Ichigo's nape. Without loosening his rough, surprisingly forceful grip in the least, he pulled his supposed king away from himself to drag his entirely defenseless human body down onto the bed. Snickering in his typical, unnerving manner, he slowly unclenched his grasp once the orange-haired boy had ceased every bit of his already poor initial resistance and obeyed the unspoken command by lying down on his back without any appreciable struggling. The mere thought that he could break Kurosaki's frail spine right now with just a casual wave of his hand caused him to laugh in sheer amusement. When the Vasto Lorde withdrew his fingers from the Substitute Shinigami's neck, his claws carelessly scratched the tender skin there, leaving reddened lines and eliciting a soft groan from tonight's _prey_. That was going to be _fun_ . . .

Through sinking eyes, Ichigo watched the stranger who was yet so familiar bend over him to continue their kiss. Somewhere inside his dazed mind he could hear every alarm bell ringing and his senses screaming, telling him to get away. However, these cold, but amazingly soft lips felt far too good against his own to let go of them. Longing for more of the tingling feeling stirred up by the deep, possessive kiss, Ichigo simply gave in to it and obediently parted his lips, tilting his head back into the sheets. The Hollow didn't hesitate to slide his blueish tongue into the warm, awaiting mouth - as soon as he did so, he noticed the acrid smack of booze. A second later, he had decided that he didn't like it.

The teenager beneath him flinched reflexively as sharp teeth abruptly bit into his lower lip and refused to let go until he could taste blood. The coppery, bittersweet flavor seemed to appeal to the Vasto Lorde much more: He started to lick off every last drop of the bright red liquid, sucking at the slightly bleeding wound to make it bleed even worse. Once the brief flash of pain had faded away, it cleared the way for a different kind of thrill which captivated the boy's dulled senses in an instant and ultimately silenced his already quiet voice of reason. Although his lower lip still hurt, he brushed it against its milky-white counterpart and drowned his hoarse moan within the harsh kiss. Since the deadly pale hands pinned down Kurosaki's shoulders - claws carving into the blanket's fabric -, they couldn't stop the Substitute Shinigami from burying his fingers in the long, silver-white hair, disheveling the silky strands flowing all around their frames.

When the Vasto Lorde finally let go of the swollen lips which were caked with blood by then, he was nowhere near satisfied - if anything, he was hungering for more. Trailing down the teenager's chin, the azure tongue slid across the delicate skin of his throat - right before those teeth sunk in again, piercing through the soft flesh, shedding fresh blood just to feast on its flavor and heat once more. This time, the pang was stronger than before, acute enough to make Ichigo wince despite his intoxication. Even so, he grabbed the pure white figure's back to pull him closer instead of pushing him away, unwilling to abandon the physical connection between them. He wasn't sure himself if he moaned in pleasure or still groaned in pain as the evil spirit lustfully began to lick and suck the superficial injuries.

After the orange-haired boy had dragged him down to his heavily rising and falling chest, the Hollow couldn't hold his balance any longer while standing upright; he had to lift up his knee and put it on the edge of the bed, directly between Kurosaki's thighs. With this leg, covered by snow-white, silken cloth pressing against his crotch, the Substitute Shinigami couldn't help realizing that his boxers had gotten at least one size too small during the last minutes . . . and there was a quite tangible tendency that they would lack two sizes soon.

Meanwhile, the colorless, smooth lips - alternately caressing and tantalizing his neck, leaving visible marks on the tender, tanned skin - reached the T-shirt's neckline which refused them admittance to the shapely torso below. The Vasto Lorde let out a brutish, disapproving snarl and suddenly straightened himself, raising one of his taloned hands to slash through that annoying piece of clothing and tear it in half. Of course, the pointed claws didn't only cut the fabric but also badly scratched Ichigo's chest from one collar bone to the opposing pelvic bone, making him yelp and jolt up in shock. The Hollow, who was already growing impatient, didn't waste much thought on that. He easily managed to force the struggling human body down with one hand, using the other one to peel the shredded cloth off the teenager's shoulders. His boxers shared this fate a moment later, bringing the orange-haired boy a few more claw marks across the outsides of his hips and thighs.

The bloodied rags ended up somewhere on the floor, before chilly, milky-white fingers grabbed Kurosaki's legs to pull them onto the bed. Effortlessly spreading his knees apart, the Vasto Lorde took a seat between them. His once pristine coat and Hakama were dyed red with the Substitute Shinigami's blood by now. Ichigo hadn't calmed down yet: As mentally deranged as he was by this point, he couldn't tell apart the thrill induced by his spontaneous panic from the excitement caused by his growing sexual arousal. His frantic, though futile sudden resistance became a nuisance, making the Hollow bend over him again to plant a rash kiss on his restlessly mumbling mouth to seal it.

Astonishingly enough, it worked: Little by little, the teenager stopped moving his limbs and slowly relaxed his tense muscles. As soon as he lay still again, the ghostly white figure let go of him and abandoned his sore lips to dedicate the blueish tongue to his blood-smeared torso, listening to the vivid, unfamiliar human heartbeat from inside. Accidentally, it touched one of his stiffened nipples, eliciting a hoarse gasp from the already softly panting boy. That stifled noise made the Vasto Lorde snicker and run the tip of his tongue over this sensitive spot again, tasting both sweet blood and salty sweat.

Unable to focus on anything any longer, Kurosaki clung to the previously snow-white, now bloodstained silk of the fur-collared coat, unsuccessfully trying to strip it off. Chuckling even harder at his desperate attempts, the Hollow pushed the fumbling hands away to take his clothes off himself, exposing his bare upper body. Six black, curved lines - three on each side - ran from his neck and shoulders to the yawning hole in the middle of his pale chest, which served as an undeniable proof of what he was. Ichigo had a long close look at the lithe frame, which was lean but with muscles as well-defined as his own. Blinking, he peered hard at the circular hole piercing it. He _knew _that it should ring a bell inside his mind, that he should recognize it as something . . . suspicious. It spelled _trouble _- he just couldn't remember why.

His tangled thoughts immediately flew out the window when he felt ice-cold fingertips brushing against his hot, rock-hard member. The slight, very light touch caused it to twitch and leak a few drops of precum. He hadn't the faintest notion how he'd gotten that turned on - even so, he couldn't see a necessity to question it anymore: The number of things he had no clue about seemed to increase with every waking minute since he had entered his room. The Vasto Lorde placed the palm of his hand across the boy's moist cock and pressed it down against the visibly tensed stomach beneath it. He was totally aware that a scratch of his claws in _this_ place would make the Substitute Shinigami literally jump up - perhaps he would have enjoyed provoking his alleged king in such a way at other times; now he found the alternative option to be much more hilarious.

His first slow, gentle stroke was enough to draw a throaty moan from Kurosaki's mouth and send an intense shiver down his straddled legs. Repeating this move a few more times, he furtively watched the blood-spattered teenager unconsciously flushing and panting, then closing his eyes and tilting his head back. When the Hollow proceeded to rub and push down firmer, Ichigo arched his back up vigorously and heavily gasped for breath - the well-toned and sweaty body squirming on the bed, restless fingers clenching the sheets.

It wasn't meant to last long the way the Vasto Lorde did it, eagerly awaiting the moment of the Substitute Shinigami's surrender. As relentless as he would have brought down an opponent in battle, he continued to drive tonight's prey over the edge. A little less than two minutes later, the young and inexperienced boy couldn't help but give himself over to the tingling sensation building up inside his belly and his balls: He screamed with pleasure as he came on his stomach and the snowy hand which had just jerked him off with pitiless efficiency. When he tried to open his brown eyes, his vision greyed out for the most part. He merely heard that unnerving giggle again, now accompanied by an eerily _purring_ undertone which didn't fit the sound of the distorted voice in the least.

Silently rustling, the silk of the spooky stranger's already untied Hakama came down his slim hips with no more than a careful nudge of his fingertips. The sheer fabric revealed another half-hard cock - and no one was more surprised about that than its owner. The Hollow was well aware of the fact that there were others of his kind who regularly enjoyed fooling around with their Fracción. He, however, had never bothered with getting a Fracción himself - let alone fucking one. He hadn't seen any benefit in that: It couldn't have given him more fun and thrill than a good fight, yet it would have been more difficult to come by in Hueco Mundo. Snorting disdainfully, he acknowledged to himself that things were different since he'd merged his spirit with the Substitute Shinigami's soul. His opportunities to charge into any noteworthy battle had become very rare lately. Most of the time he was bored to death while hanging around inside the teenager's bleak inner world, stuck with the damn freezing rain that was driving him crazy there.

All of a sudden, a wide grin spread across his face. If this was supposed to be his only compensation for the whole trouble - why not give it a shot, especially now that it was so _willingly_ offered to him? Moreover, he liked the fascinating sight the orange-haired boy presented in more than one way. The kid was virtually screwed, completely at his mercy and, above all, deeply devoted to those basic instincts and desires which were carefully locked up most of the time.

At this point, Ichigo was drugged with alcohol as well as with fatigue, unable to keep his eyes open any longer. He felt like he was caught in the middle of an unbelievably weird dream - his body wasted, scratched up and covered with partially dried blood, but tingling and burning with his remaining arousal at the same time. Wretched and contented at the same time, he lay back without any more struggling. Meanwhile, the Vasto Lorde between Kurosaki's widely spread thighs slid his soiled hand up and down his own member. During the process, he also moistened it incidentally, which was quite a bit of luck for the teenager who was about to feel his prick inside.

As far gone as he was, the Substitute Shinigami didn't comprehend what was going on as his calves were flicked over the ghostly figure's milky-white, black-striped shoulders. Consequently, he suffered a very nasty surprise a second later when something really hard and - at least from his point of view - far too big rubbed against his butt right before it was impatiently pushed into his entrance, stretching that narrow ring of muscles much too quickly. Although his head felt like it was stuffed with cotton, his senses weren't dull enough to _not_ notice the searing pain flashing through his pelvis. Yelping, he tried to jolt up from the bed: He didn't get very far.

The Hollow - who was gasping himself, surrounded by the boy's unbearably tight, clutching heat to the hilt - had no intention of letting him go so soon. Instinctively, he grabbed one of Ichigo's upper arms violently, slashing his razor-sharp claws into the frail human flesh without being aware of it. Pressing the teenager down into the sheets, he started to move his hips, to thrust repeatedly into that slim, luscious ass since restraint and consideration for others were entirely alien to his kind. Kurosaki's breath was taken away by the violent pain numbing his mind for the moment; he recognized nothing but the warmth and wetness of his blood streaming across his feverish skin, dripping onto the bed. He didn't even hear his winded outcry which was choked by icy, smooth lips forcing themselves onto his, because he was about to bring the whole neighborhood to the scene.

From this new position above the convulsing body beneath him, the Vasto Lorde pierced the Substitute Shinigami at a different angle the next time he bumped inside. What followed was a direct hit to a spot which made the teenager shoot his almost fully bent hips up further, an electric sensation suddenly rousing him from the shock triggered by the physical agony. Frantically moaning and shaking like a leaf, he buried his heated, flushed face against the crook of the chilly neck in front of him. The snow-white figure, which was also panting and shivering by now, just didn't stop thrusting into his tensed up butt, hitting that sweet spot over and over again, squeezing and rubbing his re-awakening cock between their bellies with every move.

Spontaneously wrapping his blood-smeared arms around the Substitute Shinigami's shoulders, the Hollow was on the brink of losing it, too. The more Ichigo cramped, the harder it became to push inside him. But despite that, he felt an urge to penetrate him faster and deeper, although the insane strength and speed of his strokes already rocked the whole bed. With a raucous snarl, he rammed himself forward a few more times, causing the boy to toss and turn on the ruffled and bloodied blanket.

When Kurosaki climaxed for the second time that night, his muscles clenching even tighter than before, he also took the Vasto Lorde over the edge without realizing it at all: He spurted inside him, dizzily freezing in place afterwards - temporarily unable to catch his noisy breath. The teenager beneath him almost seemed to pass out, sinking into the blanket - if his familiar Reiatsu hadn't still hovered in the air around him, one could have taken him for dead. The gaping wound in his upper arm was bleeding and he looked as if he'd gotten pretty well smashed up during the last hour. The Hollow slowly lowered his head to lick off some more of the warm, red liquid which had already spilled across the skin.

From the corner of his glowing golden eye, he cast a glance out of the window next to the bed, watching the pale moon in the dark nighttime sky, high above the disturbing lights of Karakura town. With the taste of blood on his azure tongue and a view of that bright, beautiful moon, he almost felt at home . . .

**[- to be continued -]**


	4. Somebody Help Me (A)

**A/N:** Hello there! I want to give sincere thanks to everyone who reads this story - especially to the people who left reviews and even exchanged a few PMs with me! Another author publishing on this website wrote me, "Reviews are like little gifts, and I do appreciate them." I guess there's no way to put it into better words. :) My personal goal for this year is to update this fanfiction at least once a month. Chapters with more than 4000 words are going to be split into half to make reading through them more comfortable.

**Warning:** Rated _M_ for nasty language, a little violence and sexual innuendos (YAOI - boy X boy). _Not suitable for readers under the age of at least 16!_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach and I didn't get paid for writing this fanfiction.

**Songs I listened to while writing this:** Makeshift Romeo - The Way I Was; Full Blown Rose - Somebody Help Me

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**[2] Somebody Help Me (A)**

The first thing Ichigo felt when he woke up was the pain, spread all over his sticky, sweaty body which was curled up on one side atop of his blanket. The moment he tried to open his eyes, his head started throbbing as if someone was pounding a hammer against the inside of his skull - repeatedly and with great enthusiasm. A low, vexed groan escaped his throat. The teenager appreciated the fact that the light was dimmed; the curtains before the window behind him appeared to be drawn and kept out most of the bright sunshine, although he didn't remember shutting them last night. After his blurred vision had finally cleared up enough to see straight, he recognized his room: the neat and tidy desk on one side, his wardrobe on the other, the door in between and the planked floor - richly decorated with his discarded clothes - below.

At first, everything seemed to be as usual. But at a second glance, he noticed some disturbing details. The heap of familiarly colored fabric which had to be his T-Shirt was dyed red in places and had taken on an odd form, tattered at the edges. Red - _bloody-red_ and torn . . .

A second later the Substitute Shinigami jolted up on his bed just to be stopped by the next surge of anguish washing over him, making him gasp, his scabbed lips hurting slightly as a consequence. Reflexively, he grabbed his left upper arm and sensed some warm, partly dried liquid at his fingertips. The still sore wound which was merely covered by a flimsy scab ached with a searing pain - and so did his butt, his chest and even his neck when he stretched it to look down along his torso. What he saw gave him a chill: five narrow, deep cuts caked with blood running from his shoulder to his hip. On the edge of his mind he also noticed he was stark naked. This, however, seemed to be his most insignificant problem. What the hell had happened to him? Had he stumbled right into a fight with someone . . . or something . . . yesterday while he'd been royally drunk? Withdrawing his hand from the injured limb, he turned his gaze to the left - towards the window - to inspect the obviously deep laceration.

In the middle of this motion, the orange-haired boy froze in shock, staring at the ghostly white figure comfortably slouching on his bed right next to him as if it was the most natural thing in the world. The Hollow sneered smugly and couldn't help but chuckle at the teenager's dropping jaw. He faced the boy, supporting his head with his taloned hand, the corresponding elbow resting on the bloodied pillow. Shimmering silver-white strands of his long, flowing hair were spread out over the entire bed - or that was Kurosaki's impression as he gaped at them, choked up by disbelief.

At least the Vasto Lorde had his clothes back on. Since they were made of Reishi rather than any earthly fabric, their silky material and its pure white color had been completely recreated with all the blood stains gone. Nevertheless, the guy Ichigo shared his bed with at this moment was a freaking evil spirit - not to mention that he'd never woken up other than alone before. The whole situation was _wrong_ in so many ways that the Substitute Shinigami didn't know where to start his rant about it. He only sat there in awkward silence, trying to collect his thoughts while ignoring his discomfort.

He didn't get a chance to do so: Snickering once more, the Hollow gripped the boy's hurting upper arm without warning, pressing his milky-white, cold fingers against the once again bleeding cuts which had been reopened during the jerky movement before. In all objectivity, the cooling touch perhaps would have eased the pain somewhat _if_ it had been more gentle - anyway, the teenager didn't feel like thinking objectively. He violently gritted his teeth, but couldn't stop a hushed hiss from escaping his throat. The chilly breath brushing over his ear as the Vasto Lorde bent over it caused him to shiver as much as the low, distorted voice coming from these unnaturally smooth, snow-white lips did. "What's the matter? By the expression on your face you look as dumb as you actually are, . . . _king_."

The teasing, subtly threatening way in which his inner Hollow - who was supposed to be inside his soul as the term implied, not in his damn bed! - had stressed the last word, finally made him lose it. "Let the fuck go of me, you bastard!" he yelled, rashly pulling himself away to break free from the firm, freezing grasp. Fortunately for his already wounded arm, the Vasto Lorde didn't try to hold him back: The pointed claws just grazed the scabbed skin lightly instead of tearing through his flesh again.

Jumping to his feet as bare ass naked and mangled as he was, the Substitute Shinigami presented an unintentionally hilarious view. Stumbling halfway through his room, he realized his body - especially his butt - and his head didn't consider getting up that abruptly a good idea. However, retreating to the bed wasn't an option either. So he ended up leaning his back against the wooden door to glare helplessly at the sight of the evil spirit who demonstratively stretched out on the bloodstained, ruffled blanket.

Glowing golden eyes, shining against a pitch-black backdrop returned his gaze without even blinking. Kurosaki had immediately recognized them despite various changes to the rest of the Vasto Lorde's appearance - the hip-length hair was one of them; the dagger-like talons replacing the normal shaped fingernails were another, a few details regarding his garments aside. These creepy eyes had been unnerving him every time he had seen them in the past . . . and they evidently hadn't lost their power to do so. He had to keep himself from shaking, trying to hide his bewilderment and perplexity behind his fierce scowl while he stood motionless like a rabbit in front of a snake.

In the meantime, the Hollow tilted his head, serenely sizing the startled teenager up. That was more like the kind of reaction he had expected when showing up in front of his alleged king. "What an ungracious way to welcome the one who saved your sorry ass not too long ago . . . ," he remarked dryly, chuckling at the quite blatant allusion hardly hidden within his disrespectful choice of words. Ichigo clenched his fists, pressing himself tighter against the door behind him, holding his left upper arm with his right hand. "How the hell did you get here? You should be locked up inside my inner world!" he spat, his initial consternation quickly turning into resentment.

His question was met with a frown. The ghostly white figure shot him the sort of glance people would dart at a little boy who had just said something extraordinarily stupid. With an inaudible sigh, the Vasto Lorde swung his legs, covered by the plain silk of his Hakama, over the edge of the bed and stood up in one fluid move. Casually rolling his shoulders, he took a few steps forward. He'd lain there for hours during the Substitute Shinigami's sleep - watching the pale moon through the window, listening to Kurosaki's oddly regular heartbeat and sensing the warmth emanating from the human body next to his own. Initially, the unfamiliar sensation seeping through his usually cold skin had bothered him a bit, but after some time he'd become accustomed to it. Warming up had eventually felt comfortable enough to make him draw the curtains at sunrise to keep that annoying bright daylight from intruding. Thus, he didn't appreciate the sudden change to his situation too much, although the sixteen-year-old's reaction was simply priceless.

Now that the Hollow came towards him, the teenager was torn between squeezing himself harder against the door - hoping it would swallow him up - and pushing forward with a vengeance to seize his soul's occupant by the snobbish furred collar of the pure white coat. If he had given it a second thought, he probably would have noticed the senselessness of the mere attempt - he still was in no mood for careful consideration, though. Consequently, Ichigo let go of his aching limb to grab hold of the evil spirit's shoulder gruffly, turning his anger towards the guy who had to be responsible for this whole mess. "Answer me!" he snapped furiously.

Of course, the Vasto Lorde didn't even flinch. He threw a brief look at the sinewy, blood-smeared hand which was put on him so hastily and brashly at the very moment he came within touching distance. Then he focused his attention on the boy's grim, pinched face, raising both corners of his mouth very slowly to form a wintry, artificial smile contrasting sharply with the temper that made his golden irides virtually burn. He pulled backwards slightly - only to brace himself with force against Kurosaki's grasp a split second later, dashing the Substitute Shinigami against the sturdy wooden door.

The bang echoed through the whole house, drowning out the pained whimper the sixteen-year-old let loose against his will, his shoulder joint as well as the rips below numbed by the savage impact. It left him shaking and gasping for breath, the deep scratches on his chest hurting like mad. His bones were throbbing even worse than his head now and he was damn lucky to have none of them broken yet. Fresh blood trickled down his injured arm since the caked cuts there had been split open. Nonetheless, he refused to remove his hand from the Hollow's torso. It was his last defense, holding his opponent at arm's length. He didn't want the ghostly white figure to get any closer.

Smirking, the evil spirit looked his alleged king over. That kid was incredibly stubborn both for better or for worse - he had to give him this. Obstinacy alone, however, couldn't do any good if it wasn't accompanied by a desire for power and the self-confidence needed to win through. Leisurely, he craned his neck to come straight face to face with the teenager. Ichigo stiffened, a cold shiver running down his spine. What was that crazy inner Hollow of his planning on doing with him? He gaped at the flawless, smooth lips which remained near his own. Were they about to . . . _kiss_ him? His heart skipped a beat. A part of him wanted to scream, to struggle, to flail around - still, he didn't. It was because of his potentially serious wounds, because of his already failed attempt at fighting in his current state, he inwardly told himself.

But no kissing happened. Instead, the orange-haired boy was only given a cocky grin before the eerily distorted, low voice finally spoke, "It's not very hard to understand, _king_: Since the amount of my Reiatsu inside your soul has reached a high level, I'm able to detach some and emit it to the outside world. The weaker your mental barriers, the easier and faster it slips through." The Substitute Shinigami's eyes widened. So he'd set the monster he desperately tried to keep caged free by . . . drinking himself into oblivion? After all the time he'd fought for control it took nothing more than one silly mistake to ruin all of the progress he had made?

The Vasto Lorde sneered at him, apparently guessing his thoughts, and continued the lecture callously, "When condensing in the air, this spirit energy of mine creates a manifestation of my astral body, which may be restricted in many respects but serves its purpose well enough. Don't worry: I haven't killed one of your worthless _friends_ yet - they were out of reach and you've provided enough entertainment to distract me from trying funny things on other humans, anyway."

Kurosaki bit back a few insults from the tip of his tongue. Now that he had been reminded what a total asshole his inner Hollow was, he felt plain sick when he reconsidered the suspicion that this jerk could have been about to kiss him. How did he conceive such a ridiculous idea in the first place . . . ? He scowled, glowering down his badly scratched chest once more. "You wacko call _this_ 'entertainment'? I don't consider getting bashed up entertaining or even funny!" The Hollow mockingly perked his eyebrows up. "Oh, _really_? I was under the impression that you were quite keen on it as often as you let some idiot beat the shit out of you instead of putting up a decent fight. Let me tell you one thing for sure: If I'd attacked you for real, you would have died hours ago," he remarked smugly, remembering the way his fingers had been locked around the teenager's neck during their kiss, the fragile spine trapped in his clutch.

In response, the sixteen-year-old snorted angrily and grunted, "What would you call it _then _- beating me up by accident? Because I feel absolutely whacked." Standing in place without any movement eased the pain a little bit. Even so, his body hadn't stopped aching. His left arm bothered him the most - the deep cuts pervading its upper half seemed to be in imminent danger of reopening completely, so he had to be careful with his movements. Tilting his head slightly, the Vasto Lorde unconcernedly shrugged. "No," he returned blithely, "I'd simply call it 'screwing you'." Chuckling, he watched the boy's features derailing, mouth opening and closing immediately afterwards without a word, making his supposed king look like a fish out of water. He simply couldn't resist upping the ante with perfect nonchalance, "I must admit that having it off with you is much more fun than I'd expected."

The sullen scowl on Ichigo's face petrified in shock. Suddenly everything added up: the torn, bloodied clothes on the floor; his naked, sticky and sweaty body; several lacerations the pointed claws must have caused while that bastard had held him down, the dragging pain in his rear . . . - He wished so badly he could have called his soul's occupant a bloody liar and assured himself nothing had happened at all. The evidence, however, was overwhelming. Trembling both with impotent fury and alarm, he hardened his grip around the Hollow's shoulder. He was truly scared and - therefore - terribly enraged, shouting out the very first accusation his mind came up with, "How dare you?! You can't _rape_ someone just because that person is drunk and unable to defend himself. It's no free ticket for you to do whatever you want!"

Narrowing his dark eyes, the evil spirit raised his taloned hand to point a finger at the Substitute Shinigami. "Wait a minute . . . are you implying that _I_ forced myself on you? - Actually, _you_ were the one groping me and setting about the whole kissing stuff. Don't blame it on me now!" he hissed. It was really starting to get on his nerves - not so much because of the teenager's constant bleating but rather as a matter of principle. This damn coward was doing it _again_: denying something he obviously had at least kind of desired only one night ago.

"Don't lie to me!" Kurosaki barked boiling with indignation, "There is no way I would ever agree to do it with a Hollow voluntarily - all the more if that Hollow is you! You've either forced or tricked me into doing this!" The sixteen-year-old was already on the back of his feet, too busy with raging against the preposterous concept he had been confronted with to consider the possibility that the alcohol alone could have been enough to nudge him into doing something which was beyond all reason.

"So why exactly would I lie to you? I can do without that, _king_. Maybe you should have cut out all of that panting and moaning of yours as well as those two times you spurted to lead me to believe that you didn't enjoy it," the Vasto Lorde scoffed, grasping the fingers which had grabbed hold of him to remove them forcefully. Unconsciously blushing, partly with embarrassment and partly with rage, the orange-haired boy opened his mouth, right about to spit a very unkind retort containing the terms 'smug' and 'cocky' combined with the coarsest cusswords he could think of.

Their argument, however, was abruptly disrupted by a shy knock on the room's door, followed by the sound of a high-pitched, soft female voice. "Ichi-nii?" the girl inquired from the other side of the door, "Are you okay? Why are you so upset? Who are you talking to in there? It's already afternoon and you haven't eaten yet!" Ichigo immediately fell silent, his face turning pale within seconds. How long had he been sleeping it off? Even more importantly: How long had _Yuzu_ been standing there? How much of the conversation had she overheard? If anyone, especially his twelve-year-old little sister, found out about _this_, he would have to blow his brains out!

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	5. Somebody Help Me (B)

**A/N:** Hello there! I want to give many thanks to the people reading this story, especially to those who support my work by adding it to their favorites and leaving reviews or exchanging messages with me - feel free to do so, I appreciate constructive criticism a lot. And now, please enjoy!

**Warning:** Rated M for nasty language and slight smut (YAOI - boy X boy). _Not suitable for readers under the age of at least 16!_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach and I didn't get paid for writing this fanfiction.

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**[2] Somebody Help Me (B)**

[ ... ]

Meanwhile, the evil spirit in front of him had started to chuckle and appeared to be on the verge of laughing out loud at the Substitute Shinigami's cringeworthy situation. "That's what you always get for being dishonest to yourself . . . ," the creepy white figure whispered to him with a low giggle before slowly stepping back in one flowing move. The Hollow's humanlike shape gradually faded away, becoming faint and gauzy, melting to dense, coolish fog which rapidly dispelled in the air. The teenager felt a rough, nasty jolt through his body when the Vasto Lorde's heavy, eerie Reiatsu returned to his soul, burning in every fiber of flesh and sending an energetic shock through his bones within split seconds. He took a choked, gasping breath and stared around the room agitatedly. If the sight presented to him had been any different, if the pain caused by his wounds hadn't still been lingering, he would have thought that he'd just woken up from an extraordinarily vivid nightmare.

_Tock-tock_: There was that knock on the door right behind him again - far too close and too real to be ignored. "Ichi-nii?" Yuzu asked once more with a genuine undertone of concern since every sound from inside had fallen silent all of a sudden. The doorknob jiggled beside him as the girl rattled it, attempting to open the door. Technically, it wasn't locked, but her older brother's weight pressing against it was enough to stop her from getting in. She tried a second time, causing the Substitute Shinigami to push himself back even harder, his weary eyes darting across the ruffled bed. The Vasto Lorde's pointed claws hadn't only torn through his skin but had also left their marks on the blanket. Its previously clean, white fabric was dyed red and still damp, especially in the place where his injured upper arm had rested during his sleep. The other wounds had left bloodstains, too. All in all, it looked as if his bed had been the scene of some violent crime - and it kind of _was_, the orange-haired boy thought to himself gloomily.

Another joggle slightly shook the door behind him. That signified his younger sister hadn't given up yet. He couldn't simply continue standing there, blocking the entrance and pretending he didn't notice her. There was no way he could hide inside his room and play dead forever. What if she became anxious and called for Karin or their father? The sixteen-year-old glanced down his chest. Naturally, the scratches running over his entire torso hadn't disappeared - not to mention the other lacerations and the caked blood smeared over half of his body. Yuzu would be scared to death if she saw that. Even Karin would probably freak out at such a sight. Above all, his dad would immediately recognize that these injuries weren't the result of an ordinary brawl between reckless teenage boys since his old man was a damn doctor. What the hell should he tell them . . . ? They would hardly believe some story about an evil spirit living inside his soul and coming out to rape him at night. At worst, they might call the police or send him to the loony bin.

A third knock reached his ears. If he didn't do anything about it now, he would most certainly get into much more trouble than he already was in. He took a deep breath before he finally replied in his most casual tone, "Sorry, Yuzu! The TV was so loud, I couldn't hear you - what is it?" Frowning, he rubbed his knuckles against his forehead. So _that_ was the best excuse he could come up with? He was a goner! Not even the most naive and gullible twelve-year-old girl in the world could possibly buy this. A brief moment of silence followed, which seemed to last forever, making it hard for the older Kurosaki to keep his nerve.

"I wanted to ask if you're hungry, Ichi-nii. There aren't any dishes in the kitchen sink, so I figured that you must have skipped both breakfast and lunch. Besides . . . there was a bang a bit earlier. Is everything alright?" the soft voice from the other side of the door responded eventually, initially causing Ichigo to blink in disbelief. The next moment, he let out a sigh of relief. "Yes, it's nothing," he assured her hastily, "Some stuff from my desk just fell to the floor. I'll tidy it up - no harm done." Ichigo regretted blathering so much straight away when his little sister piped cheerfully, "I can help you with that! May I come in?"

His offhanded answer sounded much more irritated than he actually meant it, "No, I can do this by myself!" He needed her to go away, to leave him alone - but she wasn't to blame for the whole drek, so he immediately felt bad for taking his temper out on her. "Sorry, Yuzu," the teenager added hesitantly, just loud enough for her to hear, "I'm still tired, I came home very late last night and I've a terrible headache. Would you mind cooking something for me? I was going to eat in an hour or so, anyway." Of course, he was telling her a pack of lies. In fact, he had been one of the first to leave yesterday's party and getting something to eat was the very last thing that bothered him at this moment.

Lying to her, however, was much better than letting her know the ugly truth. The Substitute Shinigami _prayed_ that she would never find out about the monster occupying her beloved brother's soul, eagerly waiting for an opportunity to kill everyone around. A few seconds later, his prayers were answered: Although she still seemed to be a bit startled by his outburst, the girl had definitely settled down - she kindly promised him to prepare his favorite meal for dinner. Then the conversation was over. The sound of her light footsteps faded as she headed down the hall to go downstairs. Even so, he kept standing in place, clenching his fists and trying to stop himself from panicking.

He _had_ to take action. He had to do it _now_, before anyone else showed up. With cold sweat all over his forehead he put his body into motion despite the pain, stirred up again by every contraction of his muscles. Struggling to ignore it - he'd been worse than this! -, he gritted his teeth and rushed over to the bed. Stripping the stained covers from the pillow, the blanket and the mattress as fast as possible was difficult enough with his left arm nearly unusable. Unfortunately, the thin bedclothes hadn't completely prevented the blood from seeping through. Scowling, the sixteen-year-old sifted through several drawers of his desk in search for a packet of tissues to unfurl them over the dampened spots. Subsequently replacing the filthy sheets with new ones proved to be even more complicated.

Once he was finally done with the bed, it looked halfway decent again; that didn't hold true for his own appearance yet. A heap of partly torn, blood-smeared fabric - consisting of the ruined bedclothes, his T-shirt and his boxers - piled up at his feet. After he had used one of the shreds to wipe up a few crimson drops off the floor, he scrutinized it indecisively. Normally, he passed any dirty laundry along to Yuzu who did the washing and also the sewing to repair damaged clothes since their mother's death seven years ago. In this particular case, giving it to her wasn't an option, so he bundled the entire crap together and shoved it into the darkest corner of his wardrobe. He knew perfectly well that this couldn't be the ultimate solution. It would have to do for now, though. With a bit of luck he would get a chance to dispose of it without attracting attention on his way to school next Monday.

The next thing he had to take care of were his injuries. The boy was desperate for a shower for more than only this reason. He grabbed some clean boxers, a longsleeve and the sloppiest jeans he owned out of the closet, then closed it and went back to the door to listen carefully for any steps or voices outside. The bathroom was just two rooms away - these two rooms, however, belonged to his sisters. He supposed that Yuzu was busy in the kitchen, but what about Karin? Cautiously sticking his head out of the door, he peered down the hallway both ways before tiptoeing past her room. The fear that she might come out any second made his heart race. Although there wasn't the faintest noise beside his own breathing, his heartbeat refused to abate until he had finally entered the bathroom and locked himself in.

When he raised his eyes and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the mirror above the sink, Ichigo almost let the clothes he had brought drop to the tiled floor. More precisely, it was his neck that demanded his undivided attention. Dazed, he stepped closer to face last night's imprints at point-blank range. The bruised, poorly scabbed bite marks scarring his throat weren't nearly as disturbing as the blatantly obvious hickeys around them. At the mere thought of cold, milky-white lips abusing the thin, sensitive skin there, an intensive shiver ran through the teenager's bare body. Those lips had felt incredibly smooth and soft wherever they had touched him, whenever they had met his own . . . - shit. _Holy shit_! This time, his stuff fell down while he stumbled backwards. He didn't even notice. Panting in shock, he ended up leaning his back against the glass partition separating the shower from the rest of the room.

The first tags of memories which had suddenly returned to his mind were indistinct and vague. Nevertheless, they felt frighteningly real - tangible enough to spread goosebumps across his well-toned limbs. What if that freaking inner Hollow of his hadn't lied at all? It couldn't be. It just couldn't be . . . ! Ruffling through his short, unkempt hair, the sixteen-year-old tried to collect himself: a shower - he had to take a shower now. Yuzu would search for him as soon as dinner was ready. Subtly shaking, he set foot into the shower stall.

Although he didn't use any kind of soap or shower gel, the contact with pure water alone caused his raw wounds to burn as if the luke-warm liquid had inflamed them. The pain made him wince, but he stayed inside the shower, waiting for the anguish to ease and for the caked blood to be washed away. Meanwhile, his head kept spinning, driven by countless questions pressing for answers. How in the world could he allow an evil spirit to kiss him? He should have struggled to the bitter end. So why couldn't he remember defending himself against it? Why had he given in so easily?

With a low, enervated groan, Kurosaki continued brooding on that, trying to block out the rush of the water which was still stinging his lacerations painfully. He'd been at this stupid birthday party together with Keigo. He'd been drinking - and he'd gotten so hammered that he had nearly barged against everyone and everything on his way home. He recalled fiddling with his keys at the front door, staggering upstairs into his room and awkwardly fumbling around with his jeans to get them off. He'd sat on his bed with his boxers and his T-shirt still on.

Inhaling deeply, he rubbed his knuckles against his forehead and closed his eyes, visualizing the lean, ghostly white figure that had shown up right under his nose and stayed with him as recently as half an hour or so ago: damn creepy eyes - deadly pale features quite similar to his own - lips he didn't want to think of again - slender hands armed with sharp claws - snow-white clothes, an eccentric, fur-collared coat . . . and long, beautiful hair flowing over square shoulders. The Substitute Shinigami swallowed hard. Had he really referred to it as _beautiful _just now? Nothing about a Hollow should deserve such a term - those long strands, however, had been exactly that: beautiful and silky. Indeed, . . . he'd fondled them, had buried his fingertips in the silver-white mane. He felt his cheeks heating up as he blushed scarlet. What the hell was _wrong_ with him? Had this weirdo cast some crazy mind-altering spell on him? That had to be it! Any other possible explanation he could come up with was even worse.

By now, the orange-haired boy had serious doubts whether he really wanted to know more. His retrospection lost some clarity when he attempted to put things together further down the line, anyway. He'd lain atop of his blanket, submitting as much to the kisses and the caressing as to the bites and scratches. Every ache had been followed by all the more pleasurable sensations which had kept him from resisting. His clothing had been ripped off somewhere in the process - the comparatively superficial injuries on his chest and his hips quite likely were a result of this. Ichigo sank against the glazed tiles inside the shower, covering his face with his sinewy right hand while the water was washing over him, skimming over every square inch of his tanned skin. With his underwear gone, the chilly, slender fingers had reached for his private parts. The teenager went as red as a beet as he remembered being touched _there_, moaning and panting in pleasure while his rock-hard prick was eagerly stroked up and down, firmly squeezed down against his own stomach.

From this point on, his memory was extremely blurred - after all, he'd been dead drunk, tired out and tremendously aroused. Even so, he could easily guess the rest of the story. He had been pushed down onto the bed and . . . well, not exactly raped. It couldn't be denied that he at least bore _part_ of the blame for this awkward incident. He should have fought it with tooth and nail. It had hurt like mad - it still did in more than only one way. Then again, there had been _something_ else about it, so many emotions and sensations besides the very unpleasant aspects. He'd felt totally hyped up, had tossed and turned on his ruffled blanket, his balls tingling as if they were about to explode. The sensory overload had been so enormous that he'd been afraid to faint, but it hadn't stopped, it hadn't stopped until . . .

The sixteen-year-old's eyes flew abruptly open when he finally realized that the prickling in his groin wasn't just an imaginary reverberation of the episode he'd recalled. Instead, it was damn real. Glancing down his body, he stared in consternation at his already rigid cock which was craving for attention. The moment he gaped at it, it bounced upwards as if some higher power was trying to mock him.

Had he _completely_ and _utterly_ lost his mind? Boys his age were supposed to get a hard-on at the sight of some pretty girl's nude boobs. His inner Hollow, however, wasn't a girl and, consequently, as flat as a pancake - not to mention that he wasn't even human at all! On top of this, his soul's occupant used to behave like a smug, egocentric asshole. Having the hots for this guy was absolutely out of the question! His dick had an entirely different opinion on that matter, though. Blurting out a furious curse, Kurosaki snatched at the faucet and turned the water to cold. He didn't leave the shower until his erection was fully gone, although the freezing temperature made him tremble like an aspen leaf.

The treatment of his wounds provided a welcome distraction afterwards. Since some of the deeper cuts had reopened slightly, he blotted the bruised parts of his body dry with the darkest towel he could find. Then he scoured the medicine cabinet for some ointment and dressing material. In case his dad inquired about it later, he would tell him that he had taped up a sports injury from gym class. Given all of the scuffles he had blundered into ever since middle school, Ichigo was quite practiced at patching himself up. Therefore, he easily managed to bandage his chest and especially his upper arm, before carefully applying a thin coat of ointment on the remaining, more superficial scratches, too. Its cooling effect soothed the pain somewhat - nevertheless, there was enough of it left to remind him explicitly of what had happened.

During dinner, Karin laughed at both his scabbed lips and the woolen scarf he was wearing to cover his neck. From her point of view, getting into a fight with other boozers _and_ catching a cold the very same night seemed to set a new record in stupidity even by her older brother's standards. Ichigo had nothing to say in his defense. While Yuzu was upbraiding her sister for being so mean, he took the first available opportunity to clear off and disappear to his room, to crawl away into his once again clean bed.

**[- to be continued -]**


	6. Drown (A)

**A/N:** Hello there! I'm really sorry that it took me so long to finish this chapter (an explicit excuse goes to SteelLark since I promised him to get it all done within a week - that, however, was three weeks ago). I would like to work much more on this fanfic; unfortunately, I'm in the last year of my curriculum and have several important exams to pass during the next months. Sincere thanks to everyone who reads and reviews on a regular basis (to know people are actually interested in my stuff pushes me to keep it going)!

**Warning:** Rated M for quite detailed smut (YAOI - boy X boy, nasty language). If you don't like stuff like that or if your country's national laws don't allow you to look at it, please stop reading. _Not suitable for readers under the age of at least 16!_

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Bleach and I didn't get paid for writing this fanfiction.

**Songs I listened to while writing this:** Three Days Grace - Drown; Gary Jules - Mad World

* * *

**[3] Drown (A)**

He watched these slender, milky-white hands stroking upwards his well-toned stomach, reaching his tanned chest. On the way, their freezing touch spread goosebumps over his heated skin and caused his nipples to stiffen. The fingertips circling around them an instant later drew a soft moan from his throat, which was covered with countless wet kisses and a few ruthless bites in between from the very moment his lover's perfectly smooth lips got close enough. Sending both hot and cold shivers down his spine, pointed claws lightly grazed his shoulders as deadly pale fingers embraced them to press him down into the sheets.

Closing his already sinking eyes, he gladly leaned into the passionate kiss planted on his mouth. Sighing with pleasure, he put his arms around the lean figure above him to ruffle the silky, silver-white strands of hair trickling through his hands, tickling his torso wherever they fell down on it. As soon as he parted his lips, panting for breath, a bluish tongue invaded and impatiently conquered them, seeking to creep inside. He didn't feel like struggling, anyway. He just gave in, abandoning himself to the blissful sensations tingling through his body, causing the defined muscles to tense up and his half-hard cock to twitch.

Placing an elbow next to him on the mattress to support the athletic, lithe frame's weight on it, his lover freed five chilly, taloned fingers to slide them down his chest. Gently caressing his flesh without leaving a single scratch, they groped their way across barely palpable ribs, heading for his slim hips. Tracing his groins, they ultimately came into contact with his swollen prick. It seemed to happen only accidentally the first time - nevertheless, it was enough to make him abruptly arch his back. The eager dance of their tongues, which none of them was willing to interrupt, kept a hoarse gasp from escaping his mouth.

When the teasing fingertips finally started to bob up and down his entire length at a slow, seductive pace, he couldn't help but separate from the colorless lips clinging to his own to vent his flaring arousal in a pleading sound, seizing the flowing mane in his grasp tighter. He didn't get much of a chance to fill his lungs with air: A few seconds later, his mouth was avidly sealed once more. Little by little, the tantalizing hand resting in his crotch clasped the rigid cock, moist with the precum it had leaked by now, to intensify its massage of his most sensitive and private parts. Sharp teeth bit down on his lower lip to stop him from severing the renewed kiss, nibbling and sucking at it to the point where it began to ache - choking another moan he was about to let out. Even so, he couldn't find it in himself to resist.

He didn't mind the mild pain. Instead, he was craving for more, snuggling up to the man above him to rub his trembling, feverish body against cold porcelain skin. His lover got the hint before he himself understood what he was silently asking for. Reluctantly retreating from the warmth of his mouth, the snow-white figure released his throbbing member and sat up in front of him to spread his knees apart. He simply lay back, eyes shut and head tilted aside on the pillow, ghostly fingers fondling the delicate insides of his thighs, easily slipping below his buttocks to cling round them. The second his pelvis was lifted from the bed, he instinctively wrapped his legs around his lover's midriff, attempting to pull him closer. This, however, proved to be unnecessary: Just a moment later he felt the tip of an erect cock carefully pushing into his entrance.

This time, it didn't hurt in the slightest. There was only the incredible feeling of being stretched and entirely filled as his lover sunk in to the hilt. It left him panting heavily, causing his dripping dick to shoot up and smack against his belly right afterwards. The coolish, rock-hard flesh shoved inside his much too tight, clutching heat backed out, only to thrust forward over and over again, setting a steady, infectious rhythm. Submitting to its quickly increasing speed and force, his hips jolted up to meet every single stroke, longing for more of the electric sensation flooding his balls, convulsing his limbs and diffusing to every last fiber of his being. He wanted it to go on, to last forever - he already knew it wouldn't, though. Crying out his pleasure, he desperately tried to keep himself from coming . . .

.

.

.

Then it was over, gone in the blink of an eye. Ichigo stared at the plain ceiling of his dark room - his body all sweaty, his breath ragged and his vision blurred with sleep. He found himself alone in his bed, still wearing some boxers as well as a T-shirt which covered the bandages around his chest and his left upper arm. These boxers were a sticky, damp mess by now, soaked with his cum. On the nightstand next to him, his alarm clock was emitting its nasty, high-pitched wail. When he hastily slapped his hand on it to silence the annoying sound, he knocked it down together with the tube of medicinal ointment and the dressing material placed close beside it. Rattling, the whole stuff clunked on the floor. _Shit._

It was quarter to five in the morning. His day had started barely a minute ago. Nevertheless, everything that could have gone wrong by this time actually _had_ gone wrong. Being already used to his bad luck, he was almost sure that Karin, Yuzu or both of them had been woken up by the noise. Straining his ears, he waited for their steps and voices in the hallway - and couldn't hear anything. Grunting, he rubbed his knuckles against his forehead. Couldn't this freaking inner Hollow of his keep out of his dreams at least? After spending most of Sunday inside his room, brooding over what had happened - including a certain incident in the shower -, he'd come to the conclusion that it was all the evil spirit's fault somehow.

Granted, he possibly had to blame himself for getting completely sloshed at that stupid birthday party. He'd done something totally inexplicable in his drunken stupor - but honestly, a lot of people did so. Certainly, he wasn't the first teenager in the world who had hooked up with somebody he shouldn't have fooled around with as the result of a boozy evening. There were stories about boys his age who had ended up getting a girl from their class pregnant and being suspended from school because of it.

Fundamentally, the fact he'd gotten laid by itself wasn't the worst part of his current situation. His butt was still aching slightly despite the healing ointment he'd used on it, and a few of the other wounds worried him a bit - especially the one on his arm. He definitely would survive, though. It were the deeper implications that startled him much more: He'd entirely lost control of the monster caged inside him. What if his inner Hollow had hurt or even killed someone else? What if his little sisters had been home that night with the vicious creature deciding that devouring their souls was a much more attractive option than screwing a sixteen-year-old? The mere thought was almost enough to turn the Substitute Shinigami's stomach.

In addition to that, he was forced to deal with a whole different issue: He didn't know what to make of the odd feelings stirred up inside him. He'd struggled to draw the curtain over them all weekend. However, here he was - furrowing his brow while just pulling off the boxers which were stained with the undeniable evidence of his failed attempt to wipe the embarrassing event in question out of his mind. He constantly told himself it was only one of his inner Hollow's sick games fucking around with his brain or perhaps some emotional side effect of having sex for the first time in his life. From Kurosaki's point of view, both of those possibilities were quite convenient ways to explain why he felt attracted to an evil spirit, a male one on top of that, at the moment. Or maybe he was finally going crazy.

Scowling, Ichigo swung his feet out of the bed. He could as well ponder on his mental state later; for now, he had to brace himself up. The blood-smeared bedclothes and the other torn, soiled scraps inside his wardrobe couldn't stay there forever. He had to get rid of these suspicious remnants before anyone else came across them. His plan was rather simple; he was going to walk off so early today that his family would still be asleep. To follow through with this, his morning wash and any other preparations had to proceed quickly and, above all, _quietly_. Flinging his boxers into a corner of the room, he bent down to pick up his alarm clock from the floor, taking a peek at its illuminated display. 5:03 AM - which meant he had to hurry.

He tiptoed to the bathroom to hop into the shower for a couple of minutes, the coolish water dissipating the last vestiges of drowsiness. Then he went through the motions of brushing his teeth and combing his unruly, garish orange hair, which had been the reason for all the bullying he'd gone through at middle school. Back inside his own room, he took care of his remaining injuries - applying more of the soothing ointment to them, wrapping fresh bandages round his upper arm as well as his torso. To hide the bite marks and fading hickeys on his neck, he needed to put on a scarf again. Desperately hoping that none of the teachers would object to him wearing it during class, he choose a discreetly gray one to match the color of his school uniform. If worst came to worst, he would have to babble something piteous about having a cold and a sore throat. No excuse in the world could be even half as embarrassing as the truth.

Once he'd finished dressing for school, the boy began to stuff the ruined fabric from his closet into a trash bag he'd stolen from the kitchen cabinet. His boxers suffered the same fate, because the tenacious, off-white stains on them were quite revealing - he wanted neither to see them any longer nor to risk that anyone else discovered them. Strapping his school bag over his shoulder, he picked up a small piece of paper from his desk in passing on his way downstairs. A short message for Karin, Yuzu and his dad was written on it; he stuck the note on the fridge to tell them that he had to meet with a friend before class.

Frowning, he wondered how many more lies he would have to tell his family in order to conceal this whole episode. He didn't like lying to them at all, but he'd had to from end to end since he'd become a Shinigami. Everything had changed - and none of it for the better. The teenager closed his eyes for a moment, attempting to push these gloomy thoughts aside: He had made friends in the Soul Society; it absolutely wasn't fair to disparage their comradeship so easily. As soon as he'd stepped out of the front door, he took a deep breath in the cool, fresh morning air to calm his churned up mind. The new day was just dawning and rush hour hadn't started yet. Nobody was around to notice him as he dragged his feet along the empty street, so nobody could ask silly questions about the crammed trash bag he was carrying around.

He left the neighborhood far behind him, simply to be on the safe side. When he eventually turned off the road, he carefully looked around several times to make sure no one watched him heading down the narrow alley, towards a single dumpster placed on the curb in front of an rusty chain-link fence. Repeatedly peeping left and right like a criminal in the very act of committing his crime, constantly reassuring himself that he indeed was alone, the sixteen-year-old opened its metal cover and buried at least some tangible parts of his problem inside. After disposing of them, Kurosaki felt somewhat relieved.

Making for Karakura High, he strolled along the sidewalk. It became more and more crowded with people now. None of them paid closer attention at him; they all seemed to mind their own business which had nothing to do with the boy among them. Sometimes he was under the impression that it didn't matter if he walked around in Shinigami form or inside his human body: People didn't recognize him, anyway. Of course, they often darted glances at his unusually colored hair, but that wasn't the same thing. Never searching for his face, their indifferent eyes looked right through him as if he wasn't really there - and perhaps he wasn't any longer.

Ichigo forced his lips into a bleak smile. On some days, this air of distance and loneliness around him hurt like mad. Today, however, he was deeply grateful to be left alone by the world. He didn't want to talk. He didn't want to explain. Therefore, he was glad about finding the school still quiet and empty on his arrival: Very few students were already present that early. Along the way to his classroom, he absentmindedly greeted several astounded teachers and some nerd from the parallel class in between. No one else was there - not even Ishida who usually showed up long before him. Silently, he sat down at his desk and rested both elbows on its surface to lean his forehead into his hands.

What would his friends and acquaintances think of him if they knew about Friday night? His pensive gaze wandered over their blank chairs. Keigo would totally freak out, ranting and whining about his buddy being gay until every last person in the entire school had picked it up. Mizuiro would smile nicely and give one of his typical polite responses while trying to calm Asano down. Needless to say that both of them had no clue what a Hollow exactly was. For them, it would be a mere question of his sexual orientation, not of his sanity in general. To admit he probably _was_ gay - up to now, he'd desperately shunned away from this particular term himself - would have been hard enough for any teenager his age.

To admit he was a sick pervert who got a hard-on at the image of a heartless monster fondling and fucking him senseless would be a thousand times harder. He lowered his head, unconsciously ruffling through his bright, short hair. From Inoue's, Chad's and Uryuu's point of view, there couldn't possibly be any acceptable explanation for what he'd done . . . none which sounded reasonable outside of a loony bin at any rate.

Orihime had seen her beloved brother's soul turning into a Hollow and going after her. Sado had been beaten halfway to death multiple times by these creatures. Ishida had been drilled to slay evil spirits from childhood and loathed them for this reason alone. Moreover, the encounter with Ulquiorra in Hueco Mundo hadn't helped much to change their attitudes. If anything, they were especially afraid of _his_ inner Hollow since that one had taken control over his dying body to rip the Cuatro Espada to shreds without blinking an eye and stab Uryuu purely on a whim afterwards.

The memories crossing his mind made him grit his teeth grimly. He remembered the pained, weary expression on the Quincy's face, his trembling fingers clutching the hilt of the plain black katana piercing his stomach. He remembered Inoue's frantic screams, her cries and pleas. He remembered the fearful words she had spoken only three days ago; they still caused his throat to tighten, the heart inside his chest to sting. In the end, he'd just stood there - waiting to awake from another nightmare. Instead, he dreamed on.

"_Kurosaki_ . . .?"

Although the voice reaching his ears was soft and calm, the sixteen-year-old almost jolted up from his seat. Instantly raising his chin, he gaped towards the door and spotted Ishida. He had frozen dead in his tracks there and carefully looked the Substitute Shinigami over before casually lifting a hand to adjust his glasses. The light reflecting off of them concealed his blue eyes quite effectively. Nevertheless, Ichigo caught a glimpse of their worried, perhaps even troubled expression. "Commonly . . . ," the Quincy stated to break the unnerving silence growing between them, "I am the first one to arrive here. Couldn't you wish me good morning at least?" This choice of words was meant to sound lecturing; the tone behind them was a tad too caring, though.

Kurosaki shrugged. What was he supposed to reply to that? How long had the raven-haired boy been standing in the door frame? He had no idea. Dropping his gaze, feeling bad to put his friend's concern off like that, he muttered, "Sorry . . . I'm a little tired. I haven't slept so well last night, okay? Good morning." He wasn't exactly lying - but he didn't tell the truth, either. In response, Uryuu watched him tacitly for a moment, taking a deep breath as if he wanted to say something. Finally, however, he remained silent and turned away to stride up to his own desk, releasing the other teenager from his pondering gaze.

[ ... ]


End file.
